Extreme Programming

Unit testing is the cornerstone of Extreme Programming (XP), which relies on an automated unit testing framework. This automated unit testing framework can be either third party, e.g. xUnit, or created within the development group.

Extreme Programming uses the creation of unit tests for test-driven development. The developer writes a unit test that exposes either a software requirement or a defect. This test will fail because either the requirement isn't implemented yet, or because it intentionally exposes a defect in the existing code. Then, the developer writes the simplest code to make the test, along with other tests, pass.

All classes in the system are unit tested. Developers release unit testing code to the code repository in conjunction with the code it tests. XP's thorough unit testing allows the benefits mentioned above, such as simpler and more confident code development and refactoring, simplified code integration, accurate documentation, and more modular designs. These unit tests are also constantly run as a form of regression test.